


Poison and Wine

by AllThisAndLoveTooWillRuinUs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, So much angst, Songfic, beating a dead horse with this angst, unfortunately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 13:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15143669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThisAndLoveTooWillRuinUs/pseuds/AllThisAndLoveTooWillRuinUs
Summary: "Oh I don't love you, but I always will"Poison and Wine by The Civil Wars





	Poison and Wine

_You only know what I want you to_

Sirius sits in an uncomfortable office chair as old as fear itself, too entrenched with this feeling to reminisce about the time he'd spent in this chair discussing clever feats. The cleverest of all the men he knows sits before him and his best friend, reminding them yet again that they cannot tell him about the particular danger they face or how they're handling it. Sirius cannot trust the man he's loved deeply for the hardest and happiest of years.

There was a time, when they were very young, when Remus risked everything to share himself with Sirius and their other boyhood friends. Sirius cannot tell if confiding simply looks different in the face of age or if it's the shade of war making this darker and deeper. And Sirius wants to think that all this secrecy is just following orders. He pretends it is eating him alive when they sleep in the same bed every night, and sometimes, in the candlelight before he slips in between the sheets and between Sirius’s limbs, it is. But in the morning, Remus is quieter, more distant; mysterious absences, mysterious scars. Sirius feels the pang in the part of his core that used to always feel of warmth or of butterflies at the sight of those eternally chapped lips. Now Sirius can only wonder- who do those lips speak to, if not him?

_I know everything you don't want me to_

Remus disappears for days, sometimes. Occasionally on missions, which he does not want to discuss. Sometimes just to get away, as if not seeing the ones he loves will put their danger on pause. There are days on a roof in the country, where on every star is a wish for a comrade. There are days by the beach, imagining to the smallest detail what his life would be without the war. There are days in the forbidden forest, pretending he is again young and loved and in love. One day is just a bar, and coincidentally, a friend. Hagrid, sorrow on sleeve and 5th drink in hand, asked why he saw James and Sirius coming round so much without him. “Though’ ye’ was a bit o’ a package deal”. And something that had been sitting in his stomach hardens like concrete that cannot be moved. Spells, spells, questions, questions. He forgets just a little that he has allies at all in his hunt for answers. Baby Harry is in danger--well then, it's understandable to prioritize his safety. It should be. It is reasonable.

It does not feel so.

_Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine_

At the beginning of Remus and Sirius, words went unsaid in the daylight. They only existed at one in the morning, Sirius's expensive socks padding his careful steps across the room as he slipped into Remus’s bed; far left, by the bookshelf, wincing as its wood creaked, forgetting as Remus’s mouth met the lips they had waited up for. Years passed and daylight was braved, yet they found themselves back in this place, silence in light, comfort in dark. And every night Sirius thinks to himself “maybe every kiss gives him more of what he needs to bring our demise” (his lover was always so clever with charms). He doesn't stop kissing and every night he stops thinking, drenched in feeling at home.

_You think your dreams are the same as mine_

October 30th Remus takes Sirius to that country cottage, with the roof under the stars. He tells him he's sorry for being distant, that sometimes he isn't brave enough to stay and remember what he could lose. Remus tells Sirius how he comes here, or sometimes somewhere else, to think, make wishes, pray to one of James's gods, hoping they'll take Remus’ prayers in his name. He sees Sirius’ look of pain, wonders if he will tell him about how the first man to make either of them believe in themselves was on a death list, how their best friend and his family were Evil’s biggest threat. Sirius does not, but he does eventually relax, perhaps at ease with the decision to do so after he's consulted James himself. They sit on the roof, each star a wish for their future. Sirius points to them; that one is for a jobs as aurors, that one is for seeing the world together, that one is for big pranks that will never be forgotten. Sirius has missed Remus's laugh so much, he gets carried away and the sky is almost out of stars when Sirius finally tells Remus make a wish. Remus thinks for a moment, points a shaky hand to a dim star on the horizon. “That one's for dinner together every night” another star to their left, “that one's for doing the dishes together afterwards”.

_Oh I don't love you but I always will_

Sirius returns to the stiff old chairs in the cluttered Hogwarts office again that morning. He tells the old man he's wrong, and Remus must know the truth. He could help protect Peter, the two of them, they'd be stronger together. There was no real reason to mistrust him, they were just dooming themselves with all this paranoia.

_Oh I don't love you but I always will_

Dumbledore just got a sad knowing look in his aging eyes. He told Sirius the same things he always had. But this time, when he got to the notorious “your feelings are clouding your judgment” line, there was a bit of a pause. A voice older than Sirius could imagine said it was not unfamiliar with a love for a man so deep it blinds. A voice more broken that Sirius could imagine said it was foolish to trust a clever man because of what your heart told you; a clever man controls your heart and brings ruin with it.

_Oh I don't love you but I always will_

Sirius did not see this coming, he panics, he says he doesn't know what the old man is talking about. “I don't love him, I don't know what you're saying , you misunderstand” and he races out, tripping over trinkets that could be artifacts or weapons. Even as he rushes off the grounds he loves, telling himself he shouldn't have come, that Peter gets more nervous than ever these days and leaving him alone was unkind, his mind wonders if his heart, like Dumbledore’s all those years ago, is lost beyond clarity.

_I always will_

And something here rings true in a mind convoluted and confused. Sirius imagines a world where Remus has killed Peter for the words he needs to find James, and he has sent the monsters there; he is in Azkaban, locked away for the rest of his life. And Sirius must live life alone, all his friends dead or murderers. And Sirius knows as unreal as this all sounds, that he would wince at the sound of Remus's name, he would damn him by the stars he loved and gag at the sight of the moon. But always would he have Remus running through his veins like silver thread. Always would he have Remus' lips on his neck, Remus' hands on his stomach, Remus' voice in his head. And he would always look at that full moon and hope through his sickened throat that his love was not in too much pain.

 

_I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you_

Remus had never liked Halloween as a child. Kids, all in groups because they had friends would come and knock on his parent's door and his mother would ask in the sugar sweet voice of a woman who loved people but had not left the house in years “what are you dressed as?” And a happy child would growl and bare his plastic teeth and say “a scary werewolf!” before letting out an excited howl. His mother’s smile would falter as Remus, hidden behind her, shrunk his body as much as he could and the door would be hastily shut, lights turned off, Remus sent to bed.

Halloween at Hogwarts--that was much better. Candy eating competitions, pranks to scare the first years, daring each other to explore the least used passages. Remus never really felt like he'd chosen to be any of these boys’ friend; there was just an intense and undeniable knowledge that he was. Perhaps that comes from being roommates. Perhaps that comes from fate. Perhaps it comes from being obnoxious enough to name your friend group.

Just as he never had much of a choice of being a Marauder, he doesn't have much of a choice now of loving Sirius. When he thinks of love itself he cannot imagine anything but stormy grey eyes and a smirk that accidentally slips into a grin and an implicit feeling of Sirius is here now, it's alright. No--Remus did not have a choice in being a werewolf, nor fighting this war, nor loving Sirius Black. But he knows he would choose Sirius. He thinks all of these things and hesitates before jotting them down on the card he is planning to slip into the ribbon on Sirius's birthday gift; a muggle guitar, just like his favorite bands play.

Just as he's trying the card on, there's a loud snap! and Dumbledore is in his and Sirius's bedroom. I have made a terrible mistake.

Remus sells the guitar. He leaves the card buried under the mattress he and his love used to share. After a few years, he finally convinces himself that he does not love Sirius anymore.

Each night he crawls into bed alone, he knows that he always will.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you like it! sorry it's sad! this is one of the first things I wrote, over a year ago, but this song is still so pretty


End file.
